SpaceX Pledges $74 Billion for AI Supercomputing Campuses in Texas and Arizona

SpaceX said on Thursday it plans to invest more than $74 billion in two artificial intelligence supercomputing campuses, one at its Starbase site in Texas and one in Cochise County, Arizona, in the clearest sign yet that the rocket company now sees computing as central to its future.

The company expects to spend more than $24 billion at Starbase in South Texas and roughly $50 billion on the Arizona campus, it said in a statement. Reuters first reported the plans, and the Wall Street Journal also reported the $74 billion figure.

The announcement, made under SpaceX’s “Building the Future” initiative, comes as the company’s AI division grows faster than its founding businesses. SpaceX said its AI segment generated more than half of its revenue in the third quarter, a striking shift for a company built on rockets and the Starlink satellite internet service.

A 6 GW campus in the Arizona desert

The Arizona campus is the larger and less advanced of the two projects. SpaceX plans a site of up to 6 gigawatts in Cochise County, built in four phases of about 1.5 gigawatts each, with nine single-storey compute buildings of roughly 493,000 square feet apiece, plus electrical buildings, an operations and security building, and outdoor yards for dry coolers, transformers and battery storage.

The application, filed by SpaceX affiliate Tombstone Resources, covers 747 acres along US Highway 191 near the Willcox Playa. SpaceX says the campus would use dry cooling with no planned industrial groundwater use, and could cut power bills for members of the local electric cooperative by up to 20 per cent.

At peak construction the site would support about 5,500 construction jobs, with about 1,000 permanent positions once it is running, according to the company.

But the Arizona project is not yet approved. Data centres are not permitted by right in Cochise County, so the campus needs a special use permit. The county’s Planning and Zoning Commission is due to hear the application, known as SU26-22, on Wednesday 9 December. A petition with about 2,400 signatures has asked officials to deny the permit, and the power arrangements still need to clear the state regulator.

Starbase to generate its own power

The Texas campus, at SpaceX’s Starbase site near the Port of Brownsville, is further along. SpaceX said the facility would generate its own electricity rather than drawing from the Texas grid, and it has committed $220 million to water and wastewater infrastructure in the Brownsville area.

The Starbase project was already public in part: NationWire reported this week that SpaceX had applied for a property tax abatement on a $24 billion gas-fired power plant and supercomputing hub at the site, with the Starbase City Commission due to consider the application on 9 December.

SpaceX said the Starbase facility is intended to train frontier AI systems for medical research, emergency response, advanced manufacturing and national security, while supporting development and testing of future space-based computing.

AI now drives more than half of SpaceX revenue

The scale of the commitment reflects how quickly SpaceX’s business has changed. The company went public in June, and its quarterly revenue nearly doubled from $7.814 billion in the three months to 30 June to $14.575 billion in the quarter ended 30 September, according to filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

The AI build-out is part of a wider spending wave across American technology. Anthropic’s initial public offering drew about six times more orders than the shares on offer, and Cisco and Applied Materials both raised their outlooks this week on the strength of AI-related demand.

Even so, the $74 billion is a plan, not a completed investment. SpaceX has not disclosed which companies will supply its accelerators, the network architecture of either campus, or commissioning schedules for the sites. None of the money is contracted capacity or revenue, and both projects still face local decisions before building can begin in earnest.

What happens next

Both campuses face key votes on the same day, 9 December: the Cochise County zoning hearing in Arizona and the Starbase City Commission’s decision on the tax abatement in Texas. The Arizona power deal must also clear the state regulator, and county officials will weigh the promised jobs and lower power bills against the concerns raised by residents who signed the petition.

If both sites proceed, SpaceX will have committed more capital to computing in a single announcement than most technology companies spend in a year. For a firm founded to put rockets into orbit, the message is plain: its next great build-out is on the ground, in the desert, and measured in gigawatts.

Frequently asked questions

How much is SpaceX investing in the two campuses?

More than $74 billion in total: over $24 billion at Starbase, Texas, and roughly $50 billion in Cochise County, Arizona, according to the company’s statement on 12 November.

Where exactly are the campuses?

The Texas campus is at SpaceX’s Starbase site near Brownsville, close to the Port of Brownsville. The Arizona campus is planned for 747 acres along US Highway 191 near the Willcox Playa in Cochise County.

When will the projects be decided?

Both face votes on 9 December 2026: a Cochise County Planning and Zoning Commission hearing on the Arizona permit, and a Starbase City Commission vote on a property tax abatement in Texas.